lavender

plural lavenders

1. countableuncountableAny of a group of European plants, genus, Lavandula, of the mint family.
2. countableuncountableA pale bluish purple or violet colour, like that of the lavender flower.
3. historicaluncountablebroadcastingA kind of film stock used for creating positive prints from negatives as part of the process of duplicating the negatives.

comparative more lavender · superlative most lavender

1. Having a pale purple colour.
2. Pertaining to LGBT people and rights.

   “Now in here,” their guide, sweating dark tentacles into his tab collar, briefed them, “you are going to see the members of the third sex, the lavender crowd this city by the Bay is so justly famous for.

   1966 March, Thomas Pynchon, chapter 5, in The Crying of Lot 49, New York, N.Y.: Bantam Books, published November 1976, →ISBN, page 81

   1 more example

   My sother (significant other) and I have been together almost nineteen years. Exactly half of the usual wedding vows taken traditionally by non-lavender couples — for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, — have been characteristic of our relationship.

   1981 August 22, Nancy Walker, “Still Coming Out, After All These Years”, in Gay Community News, volume 9, number 6, page 11

3. governmentPertaining to lesbian feminism; opposing heterosexism.

present singular third person lavenders · participle present lavendering · participle past lavendered · past lavendered

1. transitiveTo decorate or perfume with lavender.

   Short shafts of dying sunlight mingled with the deepening grey, lavendering the horizon, and all nature seemed to hush as though waiting to welcome the night.

   1986, Katherine Gibson Fougera, With Custer's Cavalry, page 47

plural Lavenders

1. countableuncountableA surname.
2. countableuncountableA female given name from English.

   She wanted to give the child a unique, meaningful name; among those she and Linda liked, she said, were Laurel and Lavender. Or if it was a boy, perhaps Sage . “Why not Spinach or Cabbage?” Brian had scoffed.

   1974, Alison Lurie, The War Between the Tates: A Novel, Open Road Media, published 2012, →ISBN

3. countableuncountableAn unincorporated community in Floyd County, Georgia, United States, named after a storekeeper.
4. countableuncountableAn unincorporated community in Kittitas County, Washington, United States, named after John Lavender.
5. countableuncountableA subzone of Kallang, Singapore.